I agree with some of Chris's analysis. I think we do need to start using a different type of strategy to win the war in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I don't think that Obama has what it takes to win in Afghnastan. I believe that part of the reason we went into Iraq was so that we could create a Democracy and nation-build as to help Iraqis to break the cycle of hate against the West and stop terrorism. We may have entered Afghanistan for similar reasons. I think leaving Afghanistan would be a mistake, especially since Pakistan has between 24-45 nuclear warheads that we don't want either Al-Qaeda or the Taliban to get their hands on. If they did, that would be a nightmare for the World.

You know- we gave them a ton of funding back during the Cold War to use as a proxy against the Soviets. The idea was to get them bogged down in a long war that would demoralize and bankrupt them... yeah.

We were fighting a Cold War against Communist Russia in which the Soviets would have spread communism if they had won against the Mujihadeen - which would have been a very bad thing.

I wish our leaders could be fortune tellers, but unfortunately that isn't the case. There is no way that Reagan could have known that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban were going to end up being our enemy today.

That's very true... we have no possible way of knowing who might be our enemy tomorrow. Doesn't that make it prudent not to arm other countries when they might end up as our enemies in the future? (Especially considering we have quite a hefty record of arming our future enemies. Both major wars we're fighting right now are against regimes we armed, funded, trained, and emboldened.)

But note the other part of my comment... we used the Taliban as a proxy to get the USSR bogged down in a long, demoralizing, expensive war- and it worked. Now we are repeating their mistake in the same region. That is why bin Laden struck our towers on 9-11. He was hoping to get us entangled in a similar war. It worked.

You know what's weird. My professor (a liberal) claimed that Bin Laden struck our towers on 9/11 because he wanted us to stop interfering in the Middle East. I agree with your assessment though. It makes more sense. But, did the UN invite the USSR into Afghanistan like the UN is helping the US now?I don't think the giving of the weapons was the problem. It was the fact we left our weapons over there, after the war.